My Artifact selection (just a bit late)

Piracy

Though it had been around for quite some time it wasn’t until the uproar with napster that piracy really picked up steam amongst the masses. With this new means of attaining music, consumers now didn’t have any need to purchase entire albums for artists if they so desired, this opened new doors and gave the RIAA an enemy as well, the digital pirate. With it we also saw a rise in peer to peer sharing programs where people would exchange, not just music, but films as well as programs and documents. On all fronts piracy changed the face of our digital landscape. As it gained in popularity it soon became the main means many would go through in order to attain whatever one would want that could be downloaded and it changed how everyone thought of consumerism to this very day. Now we see an increase in the digital market for video and music downloads while CD shops close all across the world. Now theatres play anti piracy ads sponsored by the MPAA before films in an attempt to curb illegal digital downloads of their films while software programs continuously upgrade their DRM (Digital rights management) programs in an attempt to curb software piracy. Now piracy has become an aspect of nearly everyone’s life, regardless of them being the pirate stealing music and software or if they just so happen to be purchasing some necessary software for a class.

While the changes seem obvious to many there are also many more subtle changes that piracy has made. The first of which is that it has given many access to programs, films, and music they wouldn’t of otherwise been able to have access to had they been unable to find ulterior means of obtaining such. An example of this could be someone who wants to explore various musical artists but could not hope to afford buying CDs at random. With a peer to peer program (P2P) or a torrent program they are able to browse several artists that they would have never been able to access at their local record shop. It also made it possible for people to try out a full version of a software to see if they could properly utilize it before spending upwards of 1800$ on a single program. It has also made people expect more for their purchases in order to feel that them spending their money was justified.

With piracy gaining in popularity it begs the question what will come of retailers selling these wares. Will this also affect the quality of the work artists, in both music and film, produce or would the industries creativity be unaffected? Is it naïve to think that this hasn’t already happened? How intrusive will software DRM become and what will it lead to? With this it’s hard to foresee what exactly will happen with the market and how the RIAA and the MPAA will continue their fight on music and film piracy? Finally has the pirate become the new punk or has the idea of stealing these items been going through recuperation?

Music.

I have recently grown fond of the indie rap group "Themselves". I discovered them in my search for something similar to the group 13 & God. I fear now I cannot find any more artists with a similar style and have hit a wall in my musical exploration. I would get into how piracy has killed creativity but I've written enough about that in papers (since piracy is my artifact) I feel I can spare you that irritating bit of reading. Regardless this is merely a rant that I am unsuccessful in my search for new music (that i'd like).

Also I am compelled to recommend the band Neutral Milk Hotel to whoever is listening.
They're very good.

Call of Duty MW 2

If you play video games and you don't want anything spoiled for you in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 the stop reading.... NOW



******************Spoilers Ahoy!**********************












So while I do think the story line in the single player campaign of the game was awesome (in a "over the top fun action movie" kinda way) there was one thing in particular I really liked. What I'm about to say may seem.... kind of.... lacking in patriotism but I very much liked how America became one of the enemy factions towards the end (sort of). Although it was only a piece of the american military that was corrupt, most games don't even dare do this. Most games haven't evolved past polorizing opposites when it come to good and evil, and many wouldn't dare have you fight against american troops, so I find it refreshing when a developer dares to do something that has surprisingly enough not stirred much controversy. I've just grown so weary of overly patriotic american troops in video games, I understand being patriotic, but in most video games it's so overdone it becomes a sickening caricature. I know call of duty isn't realistic, I'm just tired of the same cliches, I would like some different cliches.

Hmmm.... Rereading this I fear I don't make much sense.

Gaming

Being an advocate for video games I try to push them away from the negative image our society seems bent on giving them. Although I do not think they are nearly as horrible as people paint them out to be (I mean... first it was rock n' roll, then comics, now games. Does anyone else see a trend?) I do understand that there is much room for them to grow in terms of maturity. I just wanted to establish though that there are games that are both intelligent and mature (please for the love of god play braid... download a demo or something... good does not begin to describe it!) and while there are alot of mindlessly violent and racist video games out there, there are plenty of indie developers creating games that push in the envelope in both creative design, as well as story writing.

I am a huge game nerd. I know.

I would also like to establish the title of the little bio "what is a joe" was inspired by a video game. (Castlevania Symphony of the night)

Dreamworlds

Dreamworlds III

Through the use of clever editing techniques Sut Jhally displays to the audience the impact sexuality has made in music videos and what it has done to us as a society. I will now take this time to analyze the different techniques that he used and for what purpose he used them.

The first of many techniques has Jhally taking the videos out of their original context. To do this he separates them from their music, instead placing ambient background music behind his narration. As he speaks the audience is presented with the imagery without the standards music and without this it forces the audience to see the image as it is rather then dismissing it as just a music video. With this the world of the music video becomes more real, in that it begins to exist outside of the music it was originally created for. Rather than playing background to the music playing we now see the action of these videos as an independently existing world, the dreamworld of the adolescent male.

Also at a point within the video Jhally imposes words over the still image of a woman from a music video. The words he uses are qualities of any respectable human being but as he places more of these words over the sexualized still image of the girl from the music video her image begins to blur. As these qualities get pointed out and disputed the dreamworld begins to fade. For women in this world, there is no room for the intellectual or emotional sides of the woman; there is only the sexually charged adolescent’s image that survives. The most impactful technique Jhally employs in this has yet to be addressed though.

Nearing the end of the film Jhally drops all subtlety and begins drawing connections from the happenings of these music videos to real life events. He edits the film so that scenes from the Jamaican pride day riot are cut intermittently with scenes from the music videos that the narrator has spent the entire film talking about. By doing this we soon begin to recognize many of the actions that are performed on the assaulted women. Many of the men perpetrating these acts of assault are directly mimicking the actions of the artists in many of the music videos that we had just viewed. Suddenly we see just why these music videos exist solely in the dreamworld as the real women are brutally and savagely assaulted. It’s now clear to the audience just how far from reality this dreamworld exists, and also we have now bore witness to the fruits of such hyper sexualized music videos.

Though near the start of the film many can dismiss the imagery of these music videos as a simple attempt to catch viewers and draw in a audience but the closer the images come to reality the harder it gets to ignore. If this dreamworld were to become a reality, it easy to see the nightmare it would inevitably become.

Ghost in the shell.

Ghost in the Shell

The anime film “Ghost in the Shell” has a compelling use of narrative to bring up some very important questions about what it is to be human, and how we define ourselves. It is through this scope that I’ll try to clarify the issues that are brought up with this film.

One of the biggest questions that is brought up with “Ghost in the Shell” is the question of how we identify gender. The main character, Major Kusanagi, who was once a human male, chose a female body for agility purposes. This begins to blur the gender line between male and female, forcing the audience to identify what really separates the two genders. Giving the viewer someone to identify their own gender confusion with is Batou, a former colleague of the Major prior to the body swap. Batou, throughout many different instances in the film, covers an unclothed Kusanagi, which could be interpreted as a certain fondness he feels for him/her. This begs the question, in a world where people could embed their personalities into another body without any regard to the gender of the body, what could be used to define gender in this world? If we were unable to use anatomical differences to define our own gender, what would really separate us from one another?

The other major issue tackled in the film could be considered an all encompassing version of the gender issue, rather now though we deal with the broader question: what does it mean to be human? The puppet master, the main antagonist in the film, is a completely manufactured sentient entity. It was created without the use of any human brain, or human “ghost”, yet it gained the ability to function as one. Toward the end we find that it wants to be able to pass it’s genetic identity, that it also wanted political asylum after it had acquired a body. So now we’re left to wonder what defines us as human beings when independent thought is not solely isolated to ourselves. In a world where most the populace is at the very least ½ machine what is the defining characteristic of being human? The two characters of the story that are human tend to have only one trait that the cybernetic beings lack: intuition.

So in a world where machines are capable of thought and where no one is aware of what gender they were born as we are left to cling to only one trait that identifies us as a species, the gift of intuition.*

*not that terrible song by Jewel

Iphone Myphone

With my recent acquisition of an iphone I have never felt so very connected to the world.... while at the very same time I feel that this has helped promote my slump towards isolation. While I feel this constant connectivity, it feels superficial and fake. I feel that while the number of aqcuantences I'm gaining on my facebook page (all thanks to that nifty facebook app.) is sky rocketing the number of people I'd actually call my friends is plummeting. Though the iphone keeps me constantly connected I feel like now I can't escape the grasp of bigger corporate monsters. I don't know whether or not this is a normal feeling for the new iphone user or if it due to this class that I only see advertising when I look at my phone. Regardless though I do feel that I was in sore need of an upgrade and am thankful that I made the change, though I do feel like I sold a bit of my soul.... even if it was just a small piece.iSoul(ed out ) :(

Bonus Round: Favorite Video Game

With all these favorites I figured for fun I would explore another part of my nerdy self, and since video games have been a part of my life since childhood I felt it'd be nice to see if it followed my trends with all those other favorites. Continuing...

Video Game: Silent Hill 2


I don't think anyone would read this... and even if they do I doubt they'd care, but SPOILERS AHEAD.


Silent Hill 2 is a video game that follows all the trends my taste seems to gravitate towards. Abstract story that offers many subtle hints within it's own setting and characters to give one a deeper insight into the main character. It offers and exploration of all the darker parts of human nature, bringing forward a protagonist that was neither good nor honorable. Instead Silent Hill 2 provided us with a main character that finds himself to be a murderer, and whom only saw his wife as an object of sexual desire. With this game there was no character that was flawless and heroic, instead we see all the different aspects of humanity within it's cast. This is a radical change from most of the heroes we see within our favorite television shows and movies. While it did suffer from one of the biggest problems with video games of this era (HORRIBLE voice acting, to the point of comedy) it managed to overcome that with a strong story and an unforgettable atmosphere. It ushered in a new emphasis on video game story telling while so many other mediums of entertainment grew lazy. All it lacks is some sort of social commentary, but then again perhaps it does and it is just lost on me (It was initially created for a Japanese audience after all.) I felt it was important to mention, if not so I could just gush about it a little bit. There's a lot more but I'm up late and feel I should get some sleep before I miss my morning class.

I know this is very very nerdy but I felt that since video games where so significant in my life they'd deserve the same attention that I gave my film and music favorites, even if it is just for fun.

Man... I am really sleepy.

My Favorite Things

Movie: Fight Club

If difficult to say what draws me to this film, but I cannot think of any other movie that has had the same effect on me as Fight Club has. I enjoy this film for many reason, first of which is how much more can be pulled out of it upon a second, third, or seventh viewing. I also enjoy the dialogue and how smoothly conversation flows being both clever and believable. I heavily scrutinize speech in films and so I find that overall I very much enjoy this facet of Fight Club.


Music: Bright Eyes
I am a person that finds music to be one of my key pleasures in life. In this I also enjoy abstract lyricism. I find that bright eyes offers a more open and personal feel. The singer sounds exposed, as though he were bleeding out his most intimate secrets with a crowd listening in. It's this intimacy and closeness that I enjoy in music, or at the very least it's what I pull out of the music I listen to.

Also, a runner up would of been Neutral Milk Hotel.... or Taking Back Sunday oddly enough.

T.V. Show: Arrested Development

The man in the image above is GOB Bluth (Will Arnett), one of the key characters in what I'd label as my favorite show, Arrested Development. What I enjoy in this is, again, the ability to enjoy repeated viewings and still find more subtle jokes in every aspect of the show. From the dialogue ("Get rid of the seaward") to sight gags going on in the background it offered more then most shows. It also made light on many current events by featuring a house full of Sadam look-a-likes, usage of "mission accomplished" banners, references to the patriot act, and many many more. It even made light of itself when the show was going on it's way toward cancellation ("Should we go to the Home Buyers Organization?" "No, HBO doesn't want anything to do with us. I think it's showtime.")

Advertisement: Dalworth

This one was difficult, for I haven't watched television in quite some time. When I watch a television show I usually just download it direct to see if I'd like it so the one I conjured up is directly from my childhood. I say Dalworth for one reason and one reason alone. Everyone that I've ever known to see the commercial for Dalworth has remembered the phone number well into their adult life. The Dalworth jingle is something very admirable for it is the single most memorable jingle I've ever come across and I respect it for that. (Now I've never used the service of Dalworth but if I ever find myself needing my carpets cleaned I know who to call)

Call 2-6-7-8-4-3-3 because the next best thing to do, is dalworth clean!

(It has come to my attention that now their commercials lack the jingle, thus they are now horrible. )

Satire: The Onion.com


Now when I say the onion, I don't literally mean an onion, I just simply preferred to place an image of a real onion. THE onion is a satirical news website (that was mentioned in class) that offers fictional news stories that are often parodys of various aspects of modern culture. I very much enjoy this so much because while often the onion is an extreme parody of something very real the actors involved stay in character and take the stories as seriously as any other news station would. It also shows the obserdity our news programs and how much time is wasted on stories that many aren't concerned with.



Common Threads.



So... what does this all say about myself and what it is I enjoy? Perhaps it can be said that I should choose something that offers room for interpretation as my artifact? It certainly would make it seem simpler to anylize from several perspectives. Or perhaps I should choose something that offers a strong commentary on several aspect of our modern culture? It is on these things I must further meditate... and I also did not mean for that to sound as hokey as it ended up sounding.

For my inaugural post....

I will quote one of the most influential films from my childhood.

"Maybe I'm off my hinges, but I believe ya. That's why I'm gonna let ya go. I'm gonna give ya 'til the count of 3 to get ya lousy, lyin', low-down four-flushin' carcass out my door! 1... 2..."

[Tommy gun fires]

"3! Merry Christmas ya' filthy animal" [gunshot] "And a happy new year!"

Taken from "Angels With Filthy Souls" within the fine film "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" if you didn't happen to guess that from the image to the right.